Help me save my marathon!
what923
Posts: 100 Member
A few weeks ago I had a slight discomfort on the inside of my lower right leg. It never got too painful and usually went away after the first mile of a run. Kept that at bay for a few weeks then it sort of morphed into a new pain a little higher up but below the knee. I had 21 miles this last Saturday with virtually no pain during the run. Of course Sunday was a new story...my quads were sore and the pain in lower right leg almost felt more like a shin splint now. Sunday was total exercise rest and when I went for just 5 miles Monday evening...that just below the right knee sort of hung around the whole run. Slept good but it is still slightly present today.
Advice I am looking for is in general which might be the best ways to cut back so I don't aggravate any impending injury while still maintaining some stamina to make it thru my first full marathon Oct 13? The smartCoach plan I am using had 40 miles for last week (which I completed) 40 miles for this week which is definitely going to be cut drastically since I only did 5 last night, I am going to supplement a 6 mile run on the elliptical tomorrow, try a short 4-5 miles on Thursday (if knee hurts right away I will quit & walk a bit). Even if the Thursday run goes good I'm not sure I'd want to push more than 10 on Saturday just to play it safe. I've had a few weeks in at 35-37 miles per week and a couple of taper weeks at 28-30.
If I cut to 20 this week I don't think I should shoot back up to 40 the week after. I have run 20/21 miles twice so far and a handful of 15-17 milers. Any advice from previous experience is greatly appreciated. Ever tried taking two weeks off from running and just supplementing the same hours of aerobic activity with no force like swimming, rowing machine, elliptical?
Thank you!
Advice I am looking for is in general which might be the best ways to cut back so I don't aggravate any impending injury while still maintaining some stamina to make it thru my first full marathon Oct 13? The smartCoach plan I am using had 40 miles for last week (which I completed) 40 miles for this week which is definitely going to be cut drastically since I only did 5 last night, I am going to supplement a 6 mile run on the elliptical tomorrow, try a short 4-5 miles on Thursday (if knee hurts right away I will quit & walk a bit). Even if the Thursday run goes good I'm not sure I'd want to push more than 10 on Saturday just to play it safe. I've had a few weeks in at 35-37 miles per week and a couple of taper weeks at 28-30.
If I cut to 20 this week I don't think I should shoot back up to 40 the week after. I have run 20/21 miles twice so far and a handful of 15-17 milers. Any advice from previous experience is greatly appreciated. Ever tried taking two weeks off from running and just supplementing the same hours of aerobic activity with no force like swimming, rowing machine, elliptical?
Thank you!
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How many miles on your shoes? Every time I have shin pain it is because I need new shoes. For me, once I hit 400 miles or so, my shoes are toast.
I would hit the elliptical for a few days and see if that helps. I have done my entire taper on the elliptical once or twice, it worked ok for me.0 -
If I cut to 20 this week I don't think I should shoot back up to 40 the week after.
If you've done 40 recently, then this jump from 20 to 40 will be fine, assuming you have mitigated the injury (with new shoes or some rest).0 -
Thanks for the input- yes shoes were the first thing! I track mileage per pair so at the first sign of any new discomfort the 300+ went out of rotation. I know the programs I've used usually only cut about 25% in the taper weeks so I wasn't sure if the pain was gone if I should try to push back. I think I'll stay closer to 35 just to play it safe.
The discomfort seems to have transferred now to the outside of the right knee. Maybe I am slowly working it up & out! Have a 1/2 to run on 9/15 (because it's the first one right here in my town!)...giving up the goal of trying to set a PR on it. Just going to use it as a casual long run that week (which was already a taper week on my program). Keeping my eye on the prize- finishing the full injury free. I've even relinquished pushing too much for any 'time' goal. If I need to run 5 and walk 1 to get through safely then that's what I'll do. There's always more races but I only have one set of legs!0 -
Take it from someone who has had twi knee surgeries. I did just what you are doing in 2010-2011. I was having pain in my left knee when I was at work and I would come home in excruciating pain. I was working 8 hours a day 5 days a week then because my store where I worked was closing. After they closed, I was going to go to ortho and didn't because I came down with a cold and didn't want to get anyone sick. I had a half marathon scheduled for Feb 2011. At that point I decided to run the half anyway because I was thinking it was just tendonitis. After completing the race and my roommate was taking my post race pic, just after, my knee went out on me. I went to first aid with her help walking and even then the person said it sounded worse than tendonitis. I didn't listen, I continued to think I could rehab at home by staying off it and ice but that wasn't working and it got to the point that I couldn't sleep. I finally went to ortho and he had me repeat an MRI I had had after being hit by a car the previous summer because of the pain and I couldn't flatten my knee. That following week, he called me and told me that I had dead bone in my knee and he needed to go in and fix it. Two weeks later I had surgery to repair it. If you are having the kind of pain you described, I would strongly urge you to have it evaluated by an orthopedist. It could be nothing or you could have possibly a torn meniscus. Either way, you knees are nothing to mess around with. If you are having this pain, stop running and maybe not even do your race until evaluated. You could make it worse bu running.0
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Take it from someone who has had twi knee surgeries. I did just what you are doing in 2010-2011. I was having pain in my left knee when I was at work and I would come home in excruciating pain. I was working 8 hours a day 5 days a week then because my store where I worked was closing. After they closed, I was going to go to ortho and didn't because I came down with a cold and didn't want to get anyone sick. I had a half marathon scheduled for Feb 2011. At that point I decided to run the half anyway because I was thinking it was just tendonitis. After completing the race and my roommate was taking my post race pic, just after, my knee went out on me. I went to first aid with her help walking and even then the person said it sounded worse than tendonitis. I didn't listen, I continued to think I could rehab at home by staying off it and ice but that wasn't working and it got to the point that I couldn't sleep. I finally went to ortho and he had me repeat an MRI I had had after being hit by a car the previous summer because of the pain and I couldn't flatten my knee. That following week, he called me and told me that I had dead bone in my knee and he needed to go in and fix it. Two weeks later I had surgery to repair it. If you are having the kind of pain you described, I would strongly urge you to have it evaluated by an orthopedist. It could be nothing or you could have possibly a torn meniscus. Either way, you knees are nothing to mess around with. If you are having this pain, stop running and maybe not even do your race until evaluated. You could make it worse bu running.
With all due respect, the OP's description of her pain is nothing compared to your saga, where you allowed it to go on well beyond what is reasonable before you had it examined.0 -
Thanks Carson! That's what I'm hoping. For sure if it seemed to be getting any worse I would stop completely. The fact that is goes away after the first mile tends to lead me to believe it's muscle related. I do still worry I could be doing more damage by running even when it feels fine. At this point I'm going to keep it easy- replace once a week with elliptical and keep to more trails to save on the asphalt impact. I'm using ice and moist heat plus extra stretching and rollering. I'll keep up my chiro visits to keep everything aligned and add an extra massage or two to try and stay loose. I'm looking forward to having my first marathon behind me and then taking winter to get back to hopefully pain-free running!0
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That's because, as I said, I thought itwas a really bad case of tendonitis.0
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That's because, as I said, I thought itwas a really bad case of tendonitis.
Having "excruciating pain" and "couldn't sleep" because of the pain is not even remotely close to [the pain] "goes away after the first mile". Also, you yourself say you ignored the warning signs, not once but twice, before finally seeing a specialist. All this after already having had a catastrophic injury from being hit by a car!
Not in the same ballpark. Not even the same sport.
Your post just seems rather alarmist to me, for no good reason.0 -
Unfortunately to start with, the pain wasn't that bad. It wasn't until after I did my half marathon that things escalated. Before that the pain was very tolerable and I was working 40 hour weeks standing for 8 hours a day at a retail job. My physicla therapist even told me that he would have made the same mistake I did if it had been him. He is a sports injury specialist PT and before that was a personal trainer. After my half marathon, I wasn't working because my store had closed and I was staying off it and was doing no exercise at all. It was then that I couldn't sleep and it took two weeks before I could even get an appointment with my surgeon. It was after that call that I started having the screaming pain that kept me up nights. Once I had the appointment, it was another two and a half weeks before I could have the surgery due to the busy surgery schedule he had.0
